Laura Schlottman, Magnolia Science Academy Santa Ana principal, is on top of the world as she sits on a $137,000 curriculum of social studies, math, science and English books. The charter school, located in Costa Mesa, pictured, will be expanding to a new campus at 2840 W. 1st St. W. 1st St. in Santa Ana. The school, which held a groundbreaking ceremony Friday, was rejected accreditation by SAUSD and the OC Board of Education despite having high API and other scores. However, it was approved by the state Department of Education.

Magnolia Science Academy Santa Ana 10th grader Arden Burt, 15, is an honor student and on the honor roll at the charter school. He holds a citizenship award in a picture showcased on the school's accomplishments board. Burt has autism.

Sound

The gallery will resume inseconds

Reena Burt's son Arden, 15, "nonchalantly" told her he made the honor roll at charter school Magnolia Science Academy Santa Ana a couple months ago. She was thrilled and recalls when his pediatrician painted a bleak picture of his future with autism at age 5.

Choosing the best books for the school year was an easy decision for Laura Schlottman, Magnolia Science Academy Santa Ana principal. The $137,000 budget helped. The charter school, located in Costa Mesa, pictured, will be expanding to a new campus at 1840 W. 1st St. in Santa Ana.

Magnolia Science Academy Santa Ana Principal Laura Schlottman points out activities at the charter school currently located in Costa Mesa.

Social studies instructor Okan Cakir shows his classroom at Magnolia Science Academy Santa Ana. The charter school shares the space with The Sanctuary Church in Costa Mesa, but will be expanding to a new campus in Santa Ana.

Magnolia Science Academy Santa Ana, a charter school, currently shares the space with The Sanctuary Church in Costa Mesa, but will be expanding to a new campus in Santa Ana.

The Magnolia Science Academy Santa Ana campus is small, but that's one of the reasons parents and students are attracted to this charter school in Costa Mesa. It will be moving to a new campus in Santa Ana in the next school year.

SANTA ANA – In Santa Ana, which has often had among the lowest state test scores in Orange County, charter schools are booming — sometimes, even when the school district doesn’t want them.

The predominantly Latino community leads the county in the number of charter schools, which provide an alternative educational environment and curriculum. Santa Ana has eight of the county’s 18 campuses and another on the way.

At Magnolia Science Academy – Santa Ana, 45-year-old Reena Burt said recently that her family had found an alternative to public schools at the charter campus, which allowed her autistic son to concentrate on math and science, have smaller classes, and even make the honor roll for the first time in his life.

“It was beyond my husband’s and my expectations,” the Santa Ana resident said of the STEM-focused campus. “Those are the moments you live for as a parent.”

However, Santa Ana Unified School District has at times been resistant to the influx of the independently run campuses, particularly those that don’t originate from the district, like Magnolia. It has denied three such charter schools in recent years.

“Right now in Orange County, Santa Ana has denied the most charter schools’ new petitions,” said Miles Durfee, managing regional director in Southern California for the California Charter Schools Association.

Santa Ana Unified has approved charters for six campuses associated with the district, the most recent of which is Advanced Learning Academy, a district-run, STEM-focused school that had a grand opening Wednesday and starts classes Tuesday.

Even when the district denies a charter school, that isn’t necessarily the end of the story – the schools can appeal to the county and the state, which is how those three denied campuses are now on their way to opening within district boundaries anyway.

But it’s rare to take it that far.

Of the 1,170 currently authorized charter schools the Charter Schools Association has tracked in California, 1,026 were authorized by their local school district, 123 by county education boards and 21 by the California Department of Education.

“It’s not common to be denied by local authorities; however, we do from time to time see local districts denying charter schools based on things that we believe are not accurate,” said Durfee.

“I wouldn’t characterize (Santa Ana) as one of the most egregious in the state, but I would characterize them as a school district that doesn’t follow the requirements of the law in the way that we would expect them to.”

Michelle Rodriguez, district assistant superintendent in teaching and learning, said the district board considers all charter school petitions through the same, “very delineated process.”

The district doesn’t see outside charter schools as a threat to its own school offerings, she said.

“The only competition that we have is within ourselves,” Rodriguez said. “It’s not about us and them.”

Conflict between school districts and charter schools often results when a charter school is rejected by a local school board and then approved by a subsequent body, said David Plank, executive director of Policy Analysis for California Education, an education policy research center based at Stanford University in partnership with the University of Southern California and UC Davis.

“There may be political conflicts because both sides may feel that they have been ill-served by the process,” he said.

All three charter schools recently denied by Santa Ana Unified won endorsements from the association.

Vista Heritage Charter Middle School on West Fifth Street, approved by the Orange County Department of Education, will open its first day of school on Monday. Ednovate High School, formerly called Santa Ana College Prep, was granted approval from the county Board of Education Aug. 20 and will open next school year.

Magnolia Science Academy, which has an existing campus but needed approval to renew its charter and expand at a new location, was denied by the school district and the county but was approved on appeal by the state.

An October 2013 resolution by Santa Ana Unified denying Magnolia Science Academy – Santa Ana’s charter petition stated the independent charter school “is not consistent with sound educational practice” because its overall plans and projections including its budget were “unrealistic and not viable.” The district also said the school did not propose “a workable plan” for the transition to a new campus.

Magnolia Public Schools’ CEO and Superintendent Caprice Young said she felt the district lacked a legitimate basis for denying the charter petition. The charter school has 10 other campuses around the state.

“I just think it’s politics,” Young said. “We’re a very high-quality program, and the school district sees it as competition. School districts don’t like that and vote ‘No.’ The state tends to be unbiased.”

Regardless of which agency approves them, there’s no denying charter schools are in demand, particularly in Santa Ana.

“The idea of the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach I think is viewed today as an outdated model,” County Department of Education spokesman Ian Hanigan said, “and we’re witnessing a race for high quality education but one that allows our schools and communities to pick their own vehicles.”

Contact the writer: Contact the writer: 714-796-7762, jkwong@ocregister.com or on Twitter: @JessicaGKwong

Jessica Kwong covers Santa Ana and transportation for The Orange County Register. A Los Angeles native, Kwong grew up speaking Spanish, Cantonese and English, in that order, and has spent much of her journalism career working in Spanish-language media. She started her career at the San Francisco Chronicle and has also been a staff writer for the San Antonio Express-News, La Opinión, Time Warner Cable Sports and the San Francisco Examiner. Kwong has won awards from the National Association of Hispanic Publications, California Newspaper Publishers Association, San Francisco Peninsula Press Club and East Bay Press Club and has been a fellow for The New York Times and Hearst Newspapers. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature in Spanish and English and Mass Communications from the University of California, Berkeley.